It was the earliest, simplest, but still one of the most effective transport innovations made, and Faisel loves it. OK, so it took a bit of an attitude shift for the public to embrace the concept of coach travel given how poor it used to be, but once the city nodes were established, followed shortly afterwards by a massive upgrading of the transport stock there was no stopping them.

The journey between cities has become slightly more complicated than the old centre-to-centre routes: it tends to involve two changes now. In Faisel's case, a bus from his local hub took him to the Eastern node on the outskirts of Brighton, where he changed to the coach. At the other end he'll grab another bus from the southern York node to his brother's house. It's reasonably simple and at least these days the link-ups coincide to avoid waits or delays.

The intelligent transport system and the designated coach lanes on the motorway stages ensure that all three journeys will be unimpeded by traffic.

Even before these technological developments though, the simple decision to give up the struggle of driving coaches into the centre of congested towns reduced times, costs, and emissions dramatically. Faisel now reclines in his seat and debates whether it would be best to sleep through the four hour journey to York, or take advantage of some of the on-board entertainments.

He has booked himself into one of the single seats along the left-hand side of the coach for the journey, rather than one of the twins across the aisle, which means he has plenty of room to stretch out for a snooze. But he's easily seduced by the prospect of a movie and so brings up the personal entertainments screen. As expected, the coach is offering a variety of new releases he hasn't seen in amongst the wide range of activities on offer.

He orders a complimentary G&T from the touch-screen bar, and thoughts of tiredness recede as he plans how many films he can see in the time available. Drink in hand, he reclines further as the opening credits of Rocky XV scroll across the screen.